


Life After a Death

by TeamGwenee



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Reincarnation, victorian au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:22:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25216951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeamGwenee/pseuds/TeamGwenee
Summary: Sequel to Reflecting, Brienne tells Jaime about the ghost.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 10
Kudos: 71





	Life After a Death

Lord Tyrion Lannister’s Vineyard was a small corner of paradise.

Row upon row of vines stood proud in the Southern sun, heavy with grapes, and all around was green. So unlike the brutal woods surrounding Winterfell’s grey wall. Here, the vines brushed gently against the blue sky.

Brienne had taken to walking barefoot through the vines, her toes tickled by the morning dew. It was too cold to go about anywhere in Winterfell without two pairs of stockings. 

In the North, her stockings were a rough, itchy wool, knobbly from repeated mending. In King’s Landing, her stockings were silk, their pretty daintiness incongruous on her thick, red goosefleshed legs.

In the vineyard, she walked barefoot. 

The vineyard was the first place Jaime kissed her.

It was strange, at times. The Kingslayer had promised that he would remain with her, his spirit in another form. Jaime held the Kingslayer’s wit. His cutting cruetly and curbed kindness. But there was a lightness to his eyes, a boyishness about his smile the Kingslayer had lost. She was glad for it, and yet at times, she could not help resent that Jaime had no knowledge of their earliest days. It was such a large part of Brienne’s story, and yet near nothing to Jaime’s. Just a mere whisper in the back of his mind.

Tyrion remarked to Brienne, early on her arrival, how quickly Jaime had taken to her.

“It usually takes months, years, for my brother to truly call one friend,” Tyrion told her. “He could have known you long before you met.”

Brienne would sometimes catch sight of Jaime himself, watching her with a puzzled smile, as though he recognised her from some distant dream he could not place. 

Brienne knew she would tell him the truth. Just as soon as she reasoned how to put it into words that did not have her sent straight to the Reach Retreat.

These early morning walks, a contentment settled in Brienne’s stomach that could almost make her feel quite sentimental. An overwhelming rush of belonging, of love for her surroundings and her company.

“There you were Wench. You know, I saw you strolling about and I thought I would have to alert Tyrion an escaped aurochs had broken into the orchard.

It was a rush that died down mercifully quickly.

She turned to face, looking down her nose at him as he approached with a swagger and a smirk.

“Breakfast is being served,” he told her, “That is unless you would prefer to eat scraps from the trough?”

Brienne rolled her eyes scornfully.

She ended up eating her breakfast from a plate, and from her own fork as well, despite Jaime’s attempts to feed her himself.

“It’s romantic,” he informed her. “To feed one’s lady love off one’s own plate.”   
  


“Well, if it is romantic,” Brienne said, taking Jaime’s plate and scraping off his bacon and sausage and kedgeree and kippers onto her own.

Tyrion snorted into his early morning claret. 

“Hair of the dog,” he explained when Brienne first became aware of his drinking habits. “It allows me to keep a clear head for a long, hard day’s work.”

Tyrion’s greatest contribution to the running of his vineyard was quality control. Taste testing. 

Although Brienne came to act as a clerk, she found she preferred working in the fields. Never one to be idle, and loathe as she was to sit still for long periods of time, working out in the sun and breeze, growing more freckled by the day. And with no stepmother to look at her with scorn and ask why she didn’t rub her skin with lemon juice. 

Jaime liked to join her in the orchards as well, later in the day when the fields were quiet and it was just the pair, features softened in the shadows of the fading light. Jaime liked to take some exercise in the orchards as well, get his heart pumping and blood rushing, as he called it.

  
  


~

She told him that kind and pleasant evening, lying in the courtyard.

Jaime had stroked her cheek and conceded that she was not in fact an aurochs, although beneath her calm and controlled demeanour, there lurked something wild within her. Something…

“Mad?” Brienne suggested, and considering the lunacy of what she had to say, it was as good a start as any.

Now, the problem was that Brienne was a sensible, sober person, and any passion within her had to be coaxed and teased out. She was certainly not one prone to flights of fancy. 

What was more, and most frustrating, was how much sense it made to him. Just how well it fitted in Jaime’s mind. That sudden sense of camaraderie he found with Brienne. How swiftly Brienne became accustomed to his caustic humour.    
  


It was generally agreed that one had to get to know Jaime, before coming to like him. And before that moment, stages such as; mild amusement, growing irritation, and a savage desire to kill, had to be suffered through first.

Which meant, much to Jaime’s displeasure, that a portion of his soul, which had fractured from his soul after his death in a previous existence and had lingered on as a vengeful spirit, was now once more merged with his. At no point did this soul ask permission to enter Jaime’s body and merge with his spirit. Which was most unsporting and  _ very  _ ungentlemanlike.

Which, if anything, confirmed it to be Jaime’s spirit.

Nor did it give any warning, that Jaime could remember.

And yet, lying there with a waiting Brienne still and silent against him, Jaime did remember…

Remember a blade. A blade through his neck. A stream of blood.

He remembered the vows. Protect the innocent. Protect the weak. Honour your father. Obey the king.

Fire to enemies. Blood to tormentors. Gold, a prince’s price.

Jaime rolled over to see Brienne watching him, eyes wide and unblinking. 

“Your eyes,” he said softly, combing away a stray lock of hair, “were so blue in the candlelight. In the shadows, your were the most beautiful maid present.” His hand lingered against her skin. “You were the only one to ever call my name, and ask for nothing in return.”

Brienne breathed out. “You..you believe me.”   
  


“I do,” Jaime confirmed with a nod, wrapping his arms around Brienne and pulling her tight against his chest. A wry smile pulled at his lips, a jape rising to his mouth in place of anything appropriate. “We had best not tell Tyrion though. He will judge us both as madmen, and then he will never let us anywhere near his precious vineyards.” He pulled an exaggerated face. “And truly, after our trysts beneath the sky, lovemaking in a bed seems just too commonplace.” 


End file.
